“Contrary to the rumors, I was not born in a manger. I was actually born on the Krypton, and sent by my father Jorel to save Planet Earth.” — Barack Obama

President Obama is notable for the length of his list of broken promises, and his continuation of pretty much every one of the hated Bush policies. Nice going on ending Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and installing a brewery at the White House, but you came into office with all of the executive privileges exercised by W. Bush, with a Democrat-controlled Congress, and yet…

you didn’t close the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center

your universal health care is not universal health care (in a country with universal health care, even tourists get free care and there is no question about having an insurance card.)

you took no steps to preserve abortion rights (indeed, you just watched as the states eroded them.)

you nominated lobbyists into key positions

you dropped your promise to allow importation of prescription drugs

you continue to deny the very existence of drone missile attacks (transparency?)

your foreclosure prevention fund was a dismal failure

you did not push the Employee Free Choice Act (protecting unions) while you enjoyed Democratic control of both House and Senate, so it became a dead letter

you did not introduce a comprehensive immigration reform bill in your first year of office

you did not investigate Bush Administration war crimes

you allowed bankrupt companies to rob their creditors by paying outsize bonuses to their own executives

you did not create a $60 billion infrastructure repair fund

you did not lower taxes on low-to-middlin’ income senior citizens

you did not begin withdrawing from Afghanistan by July 2011

you did not increase the minimum wage

you expanded the war against medical cannabis providers

you raised taxes on those making less than $250,000 / year, via cigarettes, tanning beds, and the penalty on those who cannot afford their own healthcare.

you did not move terrorism suspects from military commissions into the civilian courts

you did not increase capital gains taxes

you did not tax oil company windfall profits

you did not achieve an agreement peacefully establishing a Palestinian state (and why on Earth would you claim to be able to accomplish such a thing?)

through the morally decrepit stooge Carl Levin, you introduced language into a defense spending bill allowing for the indefinite military detention of Americans, after you said that we weren’t that kind of country

Actually, there are at least 50 promises you broke, Mr. Obama. Your presidency has been a near-total failure, except from the standpoint of bankers, health insurance companies, neoconservative war-mongers, and weapons manufacturers. I can understand Obama voters who were simply more frightened of Mitt Romney, but… why did people show up to Obama’s second inauguration with jersies with”smiling pictures of the president sewn on like Girl Scout badges, and ‘THE ONE’ written where an athlete’s name would be?” Where was the change we were supposed to believe in?

There are instances where a total disappointment that totally disconfirms one’s beliefs is turned around into a strengthened belief. This was famously explored by social psychologist Leon Festinger and colleagues through the case of the “Seekers” UFO cult. The cultists believed that the world would end in a flood on Dec. 21, 1954, but the Seekers would be whisked away in a flying saucer to Planet Clarion. Festinger and friends were curious as to what would happen when/if the world didn’t end, so they joined the cult to watch the emotional ride first-hand.

When the saucer did not land at midnight, Dec. 21, the cultists got a little worried that they might be left behind. There was some crying and hugging. Fortunately, around 4:00 am, they received a new telepathic message from Clarion, informing them that the God of Earth had relented from his fury, moved by the love of the little circle of believers, and there would be no flood or saucer landing. The cult switched from a policy of secrecy, to one of enthusiastic proselytization.

What happened there? You’d think that people would throw up their hands, admit to having been wrong, and go home and start thinking about what to do with the rest of their lives. Festinger and team theorized that the discomfort of being so utterly wrong was unbearably great, so that people threw the whole force of their being into denying the truth and keeping the faith against all evidence. Converting new believers helped believers to feel more reasonable, with more social support for their ridiculously-held belief.

In their write-up, “When Prophecy Fails,” the researchers named some conditions that would support the redoubling of a disproven belief:

A belief must be held with deep conviction and it must have some relevance to action, that is, to what the believer does or how he behaves.

The person holding the belief must have committed himself to it; that is, for the sake of his belief, he must have taken some important action that is difficult to undo. In general, the more important such actions are, and the more difficult they are to undo, the greater is the individual’s commitment to the belief.

The belief must be sufficiently specific and sufficiently concerned with the real world so that events may unequivocally refute the belief.

Such undeniable disconfirmatory evidence must occur and must be recognized by the individual holding the belief.

The individual believer must have social support. It is unlikely that one isolated believer could withstand the kind of disconfirming evidence that has been specified. If, however, the believer is a member of a group of convinced persons who can support one another, the belief may be maintained and the believers may attempt to proselytize or persuade nonmembers that the belief is correct.

Of course, Obama’s active supporters were linked via e-mail lists, social media, house parties and so on, “groups of convinced persons who can support one another.” They took actions to be known as Obama supporters, from lawn signs to bumper stickers and so on, publicly declaring their loyalty, which cannot be undone. They watched on the news as their beliefs were unequivocally and undeniably refuted by Obama’s actual actions as President.

Hopefully more understanding can lead to more compassion for Obama’s lost followers.